Other Distinctions

Patents

Oh, San-hyun and Johnson, Timothy W. (2014) Method of forming individual metallic microstructuresPCT/US2013/030804

Baltes, Nicholas, Atkins, Paul, and Voytas, Daniel F. (2013) CRISPR/Cas reagents for the targeted modification of plant genomes. Notice of allowance issued.

Baltes, Nicholas, and Voytas, Daniel F. (2013) Conferring resistance to geminiviruses in plants using CRISPR/Cas

DiCosimo, R. Payne, M.S. Yin, T. (2012) Perhydrolases for enzymatic peracid generation, US Patent 8,334,120.

Baltes, Nicholas, and Voytas, Daniel F. (2012) Gene targeting in plants using DNA viruses.

Other Distinctions

James Christenson was the sole recipient of the Founder’s Award travel grant by the U.S. Enzyme Mechanism research community for 2017. There is only one award given each year to a graduate student or postdoc. In addition to a monetary award, he has been invited to present at the Enzyme Mechanisms Conference in January. James was an NIH BioTechnology Training Grant recipient and has been supported by MnDRIVE funds. He completed his research internship at BASF in Germany.

James was awarded for his research on bacteria biosynthesis of hydrocarbons, which has uncovered how microbes produce beta-lactone natural products. Beta-lactones are an emerging class of anti-obesity drugs, anti-cancer drugs, and next-generation antibiotics. James is a research associate in the Wackett and Wilmont labs.

John Haugner, received the Ross A. Gortner Award in 2015 and the University of Minnesota’s Graduate School Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship and Frederick J. Bollum Award in 2014. His research was published in Nature Chemical Biology and become a most read paper in the journal. John’s work enabled us to solve the 3D structure of an artificial enzyme created by in vitro evolution. This entirely new structure is highly dynamic and demonstrates that a small fold with suitable flexibility is sufficient to carry out enzymatic function, thereby challenging common views of how enzymes are supposed to look.

Sarah Hunt recently received an NIH Predoctoral Fellowship (F31 DK097947, “A theory of filtration and transport within the mesangium”).

Lauren Otto received an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship award after one year of being supported by this training program.

Rachel Hillmer received a Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship from the University for the 2014- 2015 academic year.

Sofie OBrien won first place for her poster “A Systems Analysis of Dual Signaling Control of Conjugative Drug Resistance Transfer in Enterococcus faecalis” in the Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering category at the Institute for Engineering in Medicine (IEM) conference on September 21, 2015.

Rebecca Maysonet was selected for the Carl Storm Underrepresented Minority Fellowship to attend the Applied and Environmental Microbiology Gordon Research Conference over summer 2015.

Ian Gunsolus received the Torske Klubben Fellowship, Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship, and the Robert L. Ferm Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant Award.

Joe Buchman received an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.

Sarah Gruba received a top 25 Poster Presentation Award Bioanalytical Sensors GRC 2014, Minnesota Chapter of ACS travel grant for Fall ACS ($500), ACS Analytical Chemistry 75th Anniversary poster competition ($500).

Brian Mikolajczyk was a member of the five-student team that recently won first place at the 2015 U of M Global Health Case Competition. The competition brought 14 teams together to propose a bid to the International Olympic Committee highlighting their cities’ ability to host the 2024 Summer Olympic Games.

Brittany Bennett received the Microbial and Plant Genomics Institute Travel Award, 2014 and 2015 and the MICaB Student Service Award, 2015.